1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for communicating customer comments to product vendors, and in particular to a method and system for reporting context-sensitive comments regarding software applications to software developers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Only a few decades ago, software applications were largely special-purpose products whose primary users included only a relatively small number of highly trained personnel. Since that time however, the number of software applications and software users has increased dramatically. There has also been an explosion in the rate at which new applications are introduced into the marketplace. Many of these new applications are general purpose applications that appeal to a large number of users, but an even greater number are special purpose applications from smaller software developers that are aimed primarily at specialized user groups.
For software developers, there are two keys to success in the marketplace: the ability to generate a product that meets the user""s needs, and the ability to develop and market that product before its competitors. Advances in software programming techniques, such as the advent and widespread use of object-oriented programming, have made it considerably easier for programmers to quickly develop and debug software applications. They have also made it easier to introduce new versions of software products with additional features and functionality.
However, these techniques are of little use if the resulting product does not meet the software end-user""s needs, and precisely defining and/or predicting end-user""s needs is not a simple task. One reason for this problem is that user needs develop and change as quickly as the software products themselves. For example, the introduction of a new drawing application may raise the need for backwards compatibility with an existing product from a competing software vendor, or may illustrate a feature that should be integrated into existing products as well.
Another reason is that it is difficult for users to define precisely what they want in a product, and it is usually left to market research personnel to make that determination. Market research is not inexpensive. Further, even if the user""s comments actually get to the development team, those comments have been filtered (often by those who do not understand the software development process or the product itself), watered down, or distorted to the point where the comments are no longer valid or utterly useless. Yet another reason is that software users are typically busy doing their jobs, and are uninterested in taking more than a moment of their personal time to suggest changes or improvements. Even a small hurdle between the users and the software development team is sufficient to prevent a significant number of useful comments from being submitted. Further, any difficulty in submitting such comments inherently distorts the aggregated information provided by the user group""s feedback. That is because comments are no longer reflective of the typical user""s opinions, they instead reflect the opinions and suggestions from users with a lot of time, a strong propensity to submit comments, or those with problems serious enough to bother to contact the development team.
From the foregoing, it is apparent that there is a need for a consistent way for users to rapidly and easily submit comments regarding a software application to the software developers, and for a way for the software developers to process that information and deliver it to the software development team. The present invention satisfies that need.
To address the requirements described above, the present invention discloses a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for reporting a context-sensitive comment to a pre-addressed destination.
The method comprises the steps of invoking a help module from a software application, invoking a reporting module from the help module, reading software application context information from the software application, presenting a user dialog based on the software application context information, accepting a comment in an input field in the user dialog, and transmitting the user report to a destination. The article of manufacture comprises a data storage device tangibly embodying instructions to perform the method steps described above.
The apparatus comprises a reporting module for reading the software application context information and for presenting a user dialog with an input box for user comments, and a means, such as a modem, networking system or similar devices for transmitting the user report to a destination.